In general, the lives of women and the roles they played in society were very similar throughout the colonies. However, certain conditions in the Chesapeake region changed the roles of the women who lived there and created a life that was in contrast to the lives of the women in New England. The lives of colonial women in the Chesapeake region were similar, yet in many ways unique, to the lives of women in New England on social and religious levels.

The social lives of colonial women in the Chesapeake region were extremely different than those of the women in New England. In society, women in Chesapeake had much more power due to the highly unbalanced ratio of men to women. Unlike the women in New England, southern women were allowed to have some say in whom they chose as a husband. High mortality rates led the husbands...